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CAIMEN

Traditional large Landing Craft have struggled with the design conflict that allows both stable beaching and a speed of advance that can match coastal and offshore platforms. The CAIMEN®-200 is an innovative solution towards the challenge of moving heavy payloads at sea, at speed, directly onto the beach.

In the rivers of Guiana there are several species of caimans, or alligators; but the most common there, as in South America in general, is the caiman, properly so called, a variety peculiar to the western continent. In a straight line the caiman runs very fast. At night he often travels to a great distance across the country to other rivers. He lurks for his prey under the water, leaving nothing but his snout and eyes to be seen above the surface.

Transporting a wide range of vehicle payloads, including up to three Main Battle Tanks, the CAIMEN®-200 will travel at a speed of 16+ knots - almost 80% faster than the nine knot average attained by traditional craft in this class. This performance allows independent operation at sustained range and duration, or as an integrated part of a larger amphibious task force. The wide versatility and flexibility of this platform offers real choice for combat, logistic, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief tasks. It is ideally suited as a mother craft for discrete or remote missions in the littoral/riverine environment.

Benefits

• Bulk delivery of vehicles, equipment and stores ashore without the need for port facilities.
• Up to 200 tonnes of vehicle and personnel payload (the equivalent of 3 x Main Battle Tanks, or 8 x All Terrain Personnel Vehicles or 30 x 4WD jeeps).
• Safe and swift payload transfer via the unique ‘active’ bow ramp (patent applied for), which effectively ‘pins’ the craft to the beach.
• Advanced sea-keeping characteristics.
• Multiple role capabilities, ranging from amphibious assault to humanitarian aid and disaster relief.

Features

• Simplicity of design, facilitating an enduring and flexible capability.
• Robustness and durability through stringent attention to structural detail and continuity.
• Excellent damaged stability characteristics through strict watertight subdivision.
• Modular payload capability promoting a flexible and adaptable amphibious asset.

Innovative design features allows the CAIMEN®-200 to overcome some of the traditional challenges of landing craft design. Superior hydrodynamic performance (compared to other displacement monohull landing craft) is facilitated by its low resistance hullform and ‘active’ bow ramp, which ensures an excellent balance of speed and beached stability.

Caimen-90 Fast

BMT's Caimen-90 Fast is a highly capable tri-bow fast landing craft designed by BMT Defence Services and BMT Nigel Gee which addressed many design and safety challenges for light weight, fast landing craft and reduced host ship vulnerability. It is able to operate at high speeds with heavy payloads, allowing faster amphibious offload from a host ship compared with slower, more conventional landing craft.

Through speed improvements, delivery and offload of similar quantities of vehicles stores and personnel can be achieved within the same timeframe and the specially designed hullform allows for reduced host ship vulnerability by launching landing craft further offshore and maintaining flexibility in stand-off distance. The novel, tri-bow monohull is constructed from aluminium and has been extensively model tested, with the capability of the design being proven not only in terms of speed but also seakeeping and manuverability.

Caimen-60

Caimen-60 combines the best of current LCM design and technology with the revolutionary BMT tri-bow hullform to sit at the leading edge of the performance envelope for a landing craft of its size. Its simple design ensures rapid transit and delivery of vehicles, equipment and troops from a host ship to the shore and vice versa.

As a low complexity and affordable design, the Caimen-60 benefits from strict attention to detail and structural continuity that facilitates durability and robustness. The tri-bow hullform serves to provide excellent seakeeping and survivability performance, withstanding extensive bottom raking damage through excellent damage stability characteristics afforded through stringent watertight subdivision. The vessel is also designed to interface with most well dock equipped ships and can also be tailored to be deployed via crane from ships without a well dock.